Wednesday, August 1, 2012

I am a lurker when it comes to other people's blogs. I take a great interest and have many favourites and read every word and devour every picture. Sometimes, infrequently, I will even post a comment. One particular favourite blog, http://belleaukitchen.blogspot.co.nz/ has monthly random recipe challenges. While I am nowhere near confident enough to join in, because I blog as a hobby and don't feel I could possibly meet the standards, I do enjoy seeing what other food bloggers come up with to meet the challenge.

Last months challenge was slightly different and involved taking photos of each blogger's cookbook collection. It was one I thought I might take part in - until I realised that my books are not confined to a collection. They are spread far and wide, nestled in amongst gardening and other reference books, and even fiction. So, with no time for rearranging, last month's challenge also got relegated to the Not This Month basket.

However, going through each blogger's photos and reading the stories behind their collections and favourite books made me see my own books in a new light.

Prior to moving house the first time, eighteen months ago, I must have had upward of 100 cookbooks. I did a lot of culling for that first move - books, ornaments, knick knacks, bedding, furniture - basically all the things that I looked hard at and decided were superfluous and taking up room.

My cookbooks were just as ruthlessly culled. I have a terrible habit of writing in them. If I make a recipe I scribble a comment below it saying how it turned out, whether I would make it again and, if so, did anything need adjusting (i.e. temperature, cooking time, quantities etc).

See? My system works. I have no memory whatsoever of making this, apparently, horrible cake, but my note tells me never to go there again: "Thoroughly horrible 0/10"

I culled my recipe books down to approximately 20. What then to do with the other 80 odd...? Who would want scribbled in recipe books? A few friends jumped at first offerings. I donated a lot of sundry items to the local hospice charity shop and asked them whether my "personalised" recipe books would be of any use to them, or whether they would end up sitting on the shelves and become a nuisance for them. They told me to bring 'em in and I did.

A few weeks later, and with another bootload of items, I asked about the recipe books. The ladies laughed. They had all been snapped up by people who, once they realised there were handwritten comments in them, even began picking through all the cookbooks to find mine !! It gave me the warm fuzzies to think people actually liked having my graffitti-ed books.

Today, inspired by all those wonderful bloggers' cookbook collections - some nicely curated and others more informally - inspired to get all my favourites and go-to books in one place. If there is one thing that I have noticed as I get older it is that I like what I cook to be simple, tasty and healthy. I can't be bothered with fussy recipes any more. And this was borne out my my favourites shelf. It is dominated by 3 Jamie Oliver books, a couple of Gordon Ramsay books, a couple of slow cooker books, The Essential Vegetarian Cookbook, Moosewood, and The Higher Taste, and my absolutely essential, favourite Go-To bible when I am having people over and want a meal that I know is great - Ta Da...

My old, handwritten recipe journal. Started when I was barely out of school and learning to cook in my first flat, along with another girl and a guy both also learning how to cook. We were all trying hard to prove that we could cook and none of us wanted to admit that we were learning on the job, even though each of us could clearly see we were all in the same boat. We had fun times in that flat - the accidentally melted out tupperware container when Karen tried to cook ginger crunch in the microwave...she lifted it out the microwave and the bottom of the container simply fell out. The frozen lamb chops which I put in a plastic bag and used Defrost on the microwave (which none of us were familiar with) and ended up cooking them on Defrost. They were the most tender, tasty lamb chops I ever remember having. We tried to replicate the happy mistake but never got the same great result. And Alex's amazingly light scones. He would make them randomly for us as a treat and we would huddle around the wire cooling rack and eat them hot with butter melting into them, and piled with jam and whipped cream. Heaven on a plate. He gave Karen and me the recipe, but ours never turned out like his - we always suspected that he deliberately left out some crucial step or ingredient, though he vehemently denied it.

As happens with flatters, we eventually went our own ways - me overseas, Alex to university, and Karen settled down with her fella and started having babies. When I returned it was with a daughter of my own and the cookbooks came out of storage - including that journal. More recipes got added, and one day when I was about to write in it again my wee toddler came and put her hand over one of the inside pages and, on a whim, I traced around it. About five years later I looked at the tracing and called her over and I traced her hand again. And then again another five or so years later.

I wouldn't, couldn't part with this journal. A lot of memories go hand in hand with the recipes in here - of wonderful meals and of the people who gave me these recipes.

Any starting out flatter or newly-wed in New Zealand has this on her shelf:

My, old now, edition carries an absolutely scrumptious winter comfort food recipe called Nun's Toast (which is in the "Cooking For Invalids" section. It is hardboiled eggs mixed into sauteed onions and then with the addition of a bit of milk and flour to make a white sauce, and seasoning. It is one of my all time favourite recipes, and I am still amazed that later editions have removed that recipe.

My mother's even earlier edition of the Edmonds book is, literally, falling apart. I learnt to bake in her kitchen as a child using that book.

And, as for Student Grub... well, I bought this for my daughter when she went flatting, but you wouldn't believe how many times I have used it as a fast reference to gauge how long something will take to cook.

I am currently waiting for River Cottage Everyday to arrive. I managed to buy it online with free shipping from the UK for half the price I could buy it here in New Zealand (exchange rates factored in). I can't wait for it to arrive !!

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About Me

Hi, my name is Lynne and I'm a happily single woman, whose grown-up and moved out daughter has moved back home again. I make the most of life on a limited budget. The things that make me the happiest are the simple pleasures in life: family, friends, pets, home (even though I'm in a rental), my garden, reading, and cooking. This blog is about nothing more earth-shattering than my everyday life, as I find things that make me laugh or cry or tear my hair out or roll my eyes, and the delicate art of compromise as I again have to share my home.
Hopefully I will make some friends along the way!